Friday, January 16, 2009

Readers Try Hierarchy

I applaud anyone who jumped on this right away. Anyone who attempts to figure out how to draw better methodically is going to have an advantage over those who don't. Here's Geneva.She's right in figuring out what the first level of the picture is. But here are a couple points to remember:1) Don't trace the picture, draw it.

2) Geneva has drawn the detailed silhouettes of the main elements of the picture and there is no way anyone would know where all the details would fit when drawing a composition.

The first step would be to rough in overall shapes - not every little detail. Hierarchy means do the big forms first, then break them down successively into smaller and smaller forms that fit into the larger ones.This above would be step 3. Step 2 would be to roughly break down the bigger shapes into the proportions of the characters that fit into the totem poles.Josh Heisie:Josh came closest to understanding and applying hierarchy. He started with roughing the big overall forms that make up the composition.Josh like Geneva skipped a second step of measuring off the proportions of each of the characters or sub forms that make up the main forms.A little stiff, but the right idea...

Zorrilla the magician:I'm having trouble following how we got from one step to the next in this series.And again, it won't help to trace the drawings.Anyone else try it?

Mr K, you make me feel good. Love that blog it is a gold mine.Thank you for all, i don't know if it is a good news but i restart drawing partly because of you and your blog.You are my teacher at life (appologize my mistakes, i'm french)

Hey John! I know i might be almost a year late, but I've just tried to decompose one of Dennis' covers using the hierarchy system. It would mean a lot to me if you would just take a look and tell me what you think. (I've only done the first level, in case it's all wrong right at the beggining).